Dear chums, Thanks for making and maintaining such a mine of information. I've had a look through stickies, learned part names and bought 'a pile of old lamps'. The lamps are: 6x Tilley X246 1x Bialadin 300X I have bought rebuild kits, rebuilt any that can be, fitted mantles and here are my findings: 1x x246 is perfect. Low hiss, burns so bright I can't look at it directly in the mantle, no leaks. A very rewarding process with a working article of use at the end. 1x x246 is almost as good but probably 50% as bright as the exemplary one and maybe it pulses gently. Low hiss. Any advice? 1x x246 is naff. Very dull mantle and a yellow orange glow rather than a white hot light. Any advice. 1x x246 so naff it won't even stay on for long. Puff, puff, puff, puff, CLACK. Off! Any advice. 1x Bialadin 300x not tried lighting yet as the burner assembly was so stuffed up. Will report back. In short, even with full rebuilds and some mantles, not all of my lamps appear to be created equal. I'd love some advice as I've checked for vertical streams shooting up. I've done full rebuilds but only one is really sensational, the rest range from ok to rubbish and I'd love to get them all functioning beautifully. Fred, 36, Wiltshire.
@Epohderf Firstly, Fred, good for you for going about things properly by reading up on lamp lore here! You’ve gone the extra mile too by replacing seals, so the shortfall in performance is not down to depressurisation of tanks due to leaky seals. There may be other causes of air leaks (I’m thinking pressure ‘pips’ on Tilleys) but they usually show themselves by dribbles of fuel when pressurised, particularly if the fuel in the tank has been gently sloshed around to reach where the pressure pip is. I suspect though, that the most likely cause of the deficient output is down to partial coking-up of vapourisers and/or the pricker wire. Swap vapourisers to confirm they’re responsible for the symptoms. I’ve just revived a vapouriser for a Tilley PL53 by getting it up to red heat (removed from the lamp, pricker wire and sealing washer removed) on a firebrick, using a blowtorch. Once it had cooled down I held it upright and tapped it gently (so’s not to damage the threads) on a hard surface, seeing carbon dust come out of it. Prior to that I’d removed carbon deposits on the pricker wire. Note that within a Tilley or Bialaddin vapouriser there are pricker wire guide ferrules that can trap dislodged carbon, so the method I’ve outlined is flawed to some extent because all the carbon dust can’t be removed, but once returned to the lamp and fired up, regular use of the pricker ensures a clear jet with no detrimental impact of residual carbon I’ve noticed. Tilley advocated discarding vapourisers after 500 hours’ use, so they were regarded as consumables and it may be that at least one of your vapourisers is too far gone to revive, so a new replacement or a used one in better condition might be needed. Good luck! John
Welcome to CPL @Epohderf If you haven't already, check the air intake tubes for insects etc. Good advice from Presscall, the Tilley vapourisers can sometimes be resurrected however they were designed as a consumable item and eventually will need replacing.
Evening John, Thanks for the reply. Because I have used the forum's helpful bits I know exactly which bit you mean. I didn't know that they were rated for 500 hours though. As an aside but totally unrelated, apparently the old Nokia brick mobile telephones had small pin chargers rated simply for 50 insertions, any more than that was considered a bonus. I will get torching and then see if it helps. If not, there are vaporisers available from a few pounds online.
Thanks Rob. Will clean out the holes and check the vaporisers, replacing as needed. I will report back as they are pleasingly analogue things to fiddle around with and could well be useful if we have a power cut. Are they safe to use in the house? F
A complicated question, I do but you should never leave a operating lantern unattended. There is always a risk of fire They do produce monoxide gas to some degree so ventilation is a consideration.
Indeed there are but beware of those on eBay. If they're for "a few pounds" they'll be used items, possibly cleaned/polished and a new rubber washer fitted. They may look good on the outside but you've no way of knowing how much carbon has built up on the inside or if the jet/orifice has become enlarged which will cause the lantern to burn rich.
Thanks for the caution, Henry. I've found what appears to be the tilley website flogging brand new ones for £22 a throw. Naturally i'd like to avoid that but if needs be... One vapoursier I snubbed (I did a bit of pick n mix) shot quite a fat jet off at 45° compared to a straight shooter so I will torch it to see what improvement I can make.
Welcome @Epohderf My advice for buying new Tilley vapourisers is to buy them from The Base Camp (UK) as these are tested before sale. Best regards Tony
Sometimes repeated (verging on OCD!) use of the pricker can put that right. Handy too are acupuncture needles (different gauges, but around 0.18mm) fed into the jet orifice from outside (pricker wire removed) and wiggled around a bit. Once inserted (like threading a needle) the acupuncture needle will encounter to top guide ‘ferrule’, which it will pass through with the aforesaid wiggling. Cause of the jet efflux offset? Could be a damaged jet (which no amount of pricking or acupuncture(ing) will resolve, but often it’ll be a persistent partial blockage of carbon/grit/metal oxide.
Hi @Epohderf ! Photos are always weLcome here :-) great advice already as a metalworker a little heat can go a long way (to help free off recalcitrant parts) But not too much! you don’t want scale forming on the inside of the vapouriser so I tend to limit heat to a dull red when heating a vapouriser (Dull red heat when out of direct sunlight .. easy enough at this time of year ) (( northern hemisphere ! )) Lots of tapping pre heating on a hard wooden block will get the majority out cheers mon
When you tap the vapouriser on a hard surface put a folded sheet of white paper towel down and then you can see the carbon flakes coming out.
Welcome to CPL, Fred. If the vaporizers are available, just buy some. Tilley vaporizers are not meant to be serviced. In fact, they were designed in such a way that doesn't allow effective de-coking, including using the heat-quench method. The upper section near the jet is such a restricted trap zone that even loosened carbon particles might not fall out easily. Too much heat-quenching can induce the folded/crimped sheet metal jet piece to displace or loosen. This can potentially cause the joint to leak too.
Thanks for sharing this. I will give a couple of the dull ones a bit of heat but won't be too sad if I end up buying new.
It's good to hear you've had some success with this, John. Primus (I think it was) had a method of servicing vapourisers by heating them up as you have but also forcing air / oxygen (?) through it at the same time. I can't quite remember how they forced the air through but possibly something like a car tyre footpump might do it. I wonder if this would work with Tilley vapourisers - given they're different from Primus vapourisers which have a removeable nipple. The idea would be, of course, that the increased air supply would oxidise some of the carbon to carbon dioxide and get rid of it that way. I imagine that if Primus used oxygen rather than air the reaction would become self-sustaining as the oxidation of carbon is exothermic. I'm just thinking aloud here but I'm sure somone like you, John, could cobble something up to test this. If it didn't work then it's only a vapouriser and a few hours lost...
@David Shouksmith Hiya David. That’s the crucial detail to enable the passage of a good through-flow of compressed air - a removable jet nipple. The restriction of the Tilley vapouriser’s fixed 0.18mm jet orifice would prevent any worthwhile passage of compressed air, even with the end fitting removed, as here. With that removed, it is at least possible to clean out the lowest section of the vapouriser by scraping, but getting no further than the first of the pricker wire guides. The Primus device for stove burner decoking. There’s no theoretical benefit to the method of merely getting a vapouriser up to red heat to dislodge carbon therefore, but theory aside, it has nevertheless revived a vapouriser or several for me. John
Ah, it was stove burners rather than vapourisers. I've still got a recollection of something else from Primus which was a floor-standing tripod-type arrangement and intended for dealerships rather than home use. Maybe I dreamed it. Trying it with a Tilley vapouriser would at least address, to some extent, the carbon deposits after the crimp in the vapouriser...
Morning Chums. My fettling has continued... I have blowtorched several vapourisers and banged out plenty of carbon with the result that not one, not two but 3 of my pressure lamps now work. A 4th is, I think, just in need of a properly burned in mantle as it looks like a lace handkerchief that's been chewed by dogs. I may buy a couple of vapourisers just to improve things further and get even more working lamps. I suppose the next trick will be thinning the herd so if anyone is in Wiltshire and wants lamps, I can be convinced to let some go... Thanks for the tips and diagrams, all. F
